Hi. I am new to the site. I am hoping that someone might be able to share a little info on something that I ran across while researching some of my possible native roots. I am looking into my WATERS side of the family and found that they lived in an area called Mulberry Fields ,NC, Keowee in Cherokee, now Wilkesboro. Specifically my ancestors were John Philip Waters who married a Cherokee woman and/or a Catawba woman. There is conflicting information as to his wives. John Philip Waters married Elisabeth Cullin/Cullom in abt 1789 and then Nancy Ellet/Elliot in 1790 in Wilkes County. The first was said to be Cherokee and the second Catawba. I am not sure which is the correct wife for my line or if they are one and the same. I know that some of the descendants filed for citizenship but it was rejected. They were also persecuted in court and found guilty of fornication by not being sufficiently removed from their Indian blood. Can anyone shed any light on the native americans that were in the area of Mulberry Fields now Wilkesboro, NC or by chance any information on my Waters line?

Thanks!
Annette

Four Cats

11-28-2010, 06:31 PM

Hi Annette,

The Keowee name caught my eye, as I have done some research on the Keyauwee tribe who did live in this area. The Keyauwees had a village a bit farther east near High Point in Guilford Co., NC. I have seen them associated more with the Occaneechis, Saponis, and Tutelos, than the Cherokees (http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/keyauwee/keyauweehist.htm).
I do think you're perhaps on the right track with the Catawba connection. If you're certain your ancestors were Cherokee, there was a Keowee Cherokee town in Oconee Co, SC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keowee).

Good luck in your search!

Best Regards,
Four Cats

Dan Akin

12-05-2010, 10:53 PM

I believe the Moravians recorded that their was a Cherokee Indian village at the present site of North Wilkseboro, NC. This was during their search for lands in which they later chose their Wachovia lands. They did not approach the village for fear of their own safety and reported the village contained wigwams. I believe it was possibly an annual gathering of Catawba and Keyauwee related tribes temporarily housed in portable wigwams and that the Moravians were in error reporting them as Cherokee. The area was later used as mustering place for troops in the Revolutionary War.

Annette King

12-06-2010, 02:37 PM

Thanks so very much for the info Dan! I had seen the report of the Moravians claiming a Cherokee village in the area and that was what I was trying to find more information on. Our family history says we are Cherokee on one side and possibly Catawba on the other. The records I was looking into on my Waters side of the family had conflicting court records in which one said it was Cherokee and the other claimed Catawba and I think one even says Cowan. My Waters family would of been in the North Wilkesboro area at the time the Moravians had surveyed so I was trying to find more information on what they had reported as to the natives there. The information of them reporting wigwams is very helpful as I think the Cherokee did not live in them correct? This gives more weight to the Catawba being the tribe that the wife of my John Philip Waters was from. They had a son Wilburn Waters, that was sort of famous as a book was written that gave information on him and the family. This was one of the places I had seen information about the Cherokee/Catawba question. I have never heard of the Keyauwee tribe. I will need to look that up. Thanks again for your response!!

Linda

12-14-2010, 11:27 PM

Keyauwee. Meaning unknown.

Connections -- From the historical affiliations of Keyauwee, they are presumed to have been of the Siouan linguistic family.

Location -- About the points of meeting of the present Guilford, Davidson, and Randolph Counties. (See also South Carolina.)

Villages

No separately named villages are known.

History -- The Keyauwee do not appear to have been noted by white men before 1702 when Lawson found them in a palisaded village about 30 miles northeast of Yadkin River near the present Highpoint, Guilford County. At that time they were preparing to join the Saponi and Tutelo for better protection against their enemies, and, shortly afterward, together with the last mentioned tribes, the Occaneechi, and the Shakori, they moved toward the settlements about Albemarle Sound. As mentioned already, Governor Spotswoord's project to settle this tribe together with the Eno and Cheraw at Enotown on the frontier of North Carolina was foiled by the opposition of the latter colony. The Keyauwee then moved southward to the Pee Dee along with the Cheraw, and perhaps the Eno and Shakori. In the Jefferys atlas of 1761 their town appears close to the boundary line between the two Carolinas. They do not appear in any of the historical records but probably united ultimately in part with the Catawba, while some of their descendants are represented among the Robeson County Indian, often miscalled Croatan.

Population -- Mooney estimates 500 Keywauwee in 1600. In 1701 they are said to have numbered approximately as many as the Saponi, but the population of that tribe also is unown. Shortly afterward it is stated that the Keyauwee, Tutelo, Saponi, Occaneechi and Shakori totaled 750 souls. This is all the information that we have.

Swanton "Indian Tribes of North America" pp. 80, 81

Linda

12-14-2010, 11:42 PM

Have you looked up their rejected applications? They should be in DC and likely are a treasure trove of information. I would love to see what court records there are on them. Was it family lore that stated the tribes, or was that part of the court documents? This is interesting since it gives an indication that after Anglicization people returned to traditional haunts. We often suspect this, but your evidence may be harder than most, and contribute something on that score. Thanks for posting.

Cherokee and Catawba would make sense in that locale assuming that the Keyauwee returned to the Guilford area after assimilation, after a sojourn among the Catawba. That area is on the cusp between the Siouan territories of the Piedmont, and Cherokee mountain country.

Annette King

12-16-2010, 08:57 AM

Thanks so very much for the information on the Keyauwee tribe Linda! I had not been finding much information at all on them.

Our family lore has always been that we are Cherokee or Catawba. I have found that we are probably both with more Cherokee than Catawba though. We have several different lines in our family that are Cherokee and one possibly Catawba. The documents I have been referring to seem to all claim Cherokee for my Waters side of the family. They lived in the Ready's River area of Wilkes County, NC in the 1790's to early 1800's with the wife Elisabeth dying in about 1812 and husband leaving area with children split up and given/apprenticed to other families.

I have not looked up the rejected applications yet. Not sure how to go about that. I know it was applied for Sept 8, 1896 Application #4292. Do I have to actually go to DC? From what I understand, it is claimed in them that the wife of John Philip Waters and mother of his children was Cherokee. It is said he also married a Catawba woman after his Cherokee wife's death. His first wife had a white name--Elisabeth Cullin/Cullum/Cullom. She is named in the document. Below is some of the the information that I am going on that was given to me by a woman named Brenda Keck. There is information on my family in the book called "Annals of Southwest Virginia" that calls the children Quarteroons.

An Indian community on the Yadkin River in the Mulberry Fields area of what is now Wilkes County lived prior to the arrival of white settlers in the 1750's. This community had the oral tradition of being descendants of the Chowans and the survivors of The Lost Colony from the eastern coast of North Carolina as well as Portugease descent. From the coastal area, the tribe joined the Catawbas and then moved up the Yadkin River to the Mulberry Fields area in the foothills of the Appalachians. This was neutral territory between the Catawbas and the Cherokees. The first white man to cross the Catawba River and settle in Western N.C. was WILLIAM SHERRILL in 1742, but the Yadkin area which was not as "farmable" as the lower Catawba Valley remained isolated from white exploration until BISHOP SPANGENBERG mapped this area in 1752 and identified one white family living there. By the 1780s the Indian community had orchards and plantations. In the late 1700s and early 1800s a conflict arose over land grants and the same land being granted more than once. The property belonging to the Indian community was taken and sold at the courthouse in the late 1700s. The founding family of the known descendants of this Chowan community are JOHN P. WATERS & ELIZABETH CULLON. The children are William P. Waters, Wesley P. Waters, Wallace Waters, Louisa Waters, Ketton and Wilburn Waters. Wilburn Waters is the famous Indian from Ashe, and Wilkes Co., NC and Washington GCo., VA, as chronicled in The Virginia Gazette in 1820-1830s. Some family members made claims through the Cherokee Land Claims process, conducted by Guion Miller in 1901-1906. Two generations of the family members were prosecuted under the state's anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited American Indians marrying whites. Because settlement Indians were part of the community, they were subject ot the civil and criminal laws of the state and counties. Direct descendents still live in the foothills of the Appalachians in Caldwell, Ashe and Wilkes Counties.

In 1843 the State of North Carolina v. WILLIAM P. WATTERS, son of JOHN WATERS, in a court held at Ashe County, convicted WILLIAM WATERS and ZILPHIA THOMPSON of fornication. WILLIAM P. WATERS, son of ELIZABETH CULLUM, who was one half Cherokee Indian by blood. and JOHN P. WATERS of Scotch (?) blood, was prosecuted in in the state court of the State of North Carolina for marrying ZILPHA THOMPSON, the mother of his children. Not being sufficiently removed from his Indian blood to be free from prosecution under the State law prohibiting the marriage of Indians and Whites, WILLIAM WATERS was found guilty and fined him a good sum and was ordered to leave the State of North Carolina. It was proven in court that William P. Waters was of Cherokee Indian blood. His wife, ZILPHA, was one-sixteenth Cherokee blood through her line of descent from NED SIZEMORE, a full-blood Cherokee Indian.

Waters and Thompson appealed their case to the North Carolina Supreme Court claiming that they had lawfully married and that some evidence supporting Waters' contention of "being descended from Portugese and not Negro or Indian ancestors" had been wrongfully disallowed. Water's racial composition was the pressing issue for the high court. If Waters were Portugese, then his marriage to Zilphia Thompson was legal and hence the convictions would be overturned. The North Carolina Supreme Court reviewed the testimony of the trial witnesses. ISSAC TINSLEY, a witness for the State, stated that he knew Waters' grandparents and that they were "coal black Negroes." Defense witnesses contradicted Tinsley's testimony asserting that Waters' grandmother, MARY WOOTEN, was "not as black as some Negroes and had thin lips." Other defense witnesses testified that they knew Waters' parents. His mother, ELIZABETH CULLOM, was described as a "bright mulatto with coarse straight hair" and his father as a "white man but of a dark complexion for a white man." From this testimony the high court concluded that further evidence as to Waters' racial composition would not change the fact that in North Carolina Waters had sufficient black ancestry to be defined as a person of color. The high court declared: "But admit that the defendants (sic) grandfather was white, and the grand-mother only half African - of which there is no evidence, still the defendant would have been within the degree prohibited fr om contracting marriage with a white woman. We say, prohibited degree because although the act which annuls marriages between the two races, uses the words "persons of color" generally we are of opinion, that expression must be construed to other disabilities imposed , for persons of a similar nature upon persons of mixed blood." Unfortunately for WATERS and THOMPSON, their cover of closeness of color argument proved insufficient to protect them from state punishment.
In the court documents where the child of theirs was being tried for fornication it is claimed again that she was Cherokee

Annette King

12-16-2010, 09:18 AM

Sorry that one was so long!! One of the reasons I am so unsure as to the wife of John Philip Waters is that on ancestry.com his wife is also listed as a Catawba woman named Nancy Smiling Bird Ellet. There is a marriage record for this union also. The dates all match up right but the name of his wife is given as Elisabeth Cullin in all the court documents and application records.

Tomehawk

09-10-2013, 01:38 AM

Hi. I am new to the site. I am hoping that someone might be able to share a little info on something that I ran across while researching some of my possible native roots. I am looking into my WATERS side of the family and found that they lived in an area called Mulberry Fields ,NC, Keowee in Cherokee, now Wilkesboro. Specifically my ancestors were John Philip Waters who married a Cherokee woman and/or a Catawba woman. There is conflicting information as to his wives. John Philip Waters married Elisabeth Cullin/Cullom in abt 1789 and then Nancy Ellet/Elliot in 1790 in Wilkes County. The first was said to be Cherokee and the second Catawba. I am not sure which is the correct wife for my line or if they are one and the same. I know that some of the descendants filed for citizenship but it was rejected. They were also persecuted in court and found guilty of fornication by not being sufficiently removed from their Indian blood. Can anyone shed any light on the native americans that were in the area of Mulberry Fields now Wilkesboro, NC or by chance any information on my Waters line?

Thanks!
Annette

I posted this article a while back on the Chowanoke Descendants Community forum.

An Indian community on the YadkinRiver in the Mulberry Fields area of what is now Wilkes County lived prior tothe arrival of white settlers in the 1750's. This community had the oraltradition of being descendants of the Chowans and the survivors of The LostColony from the eastern coast of North Carolina as well as Portugease descent.From the coastal area, the tribe joined the Catawbas and then moved up theYadkin River to the Mulberry Fields area in the foothills of the Appalachians.This was neutral territory between the Catawbas and the Cherokees. The firstwhite man to cross the Catawba River and settle in Western N.C. was WILLIAMSHERRILL in 1742, but the Yadkin area which was not as "farmable" asthe lower Catawba Valley remained isolated from white exploration until BISHOPSPANGENBERG mapped this area in 1752 and identified one white family livingthere. By the 1780s the Indian community had orchards and plantations. In thelate 1700s and early 1800s a conflict arose over land grants and the same landbeing granted more than once. The property belonging to the Indian communitywas taken and sold at the courthouse in the late 1700s. The founding family ofthe known descendants of this Chowan community are JOHN P. WATERS &ELIZABETH CULLON. The children are William P. Waters, Wesley P. Waters, WallaceWaters, Louisa Waters, Ketton and Wilburn Waters. Wilburn Waters is the famousIndian from Ashe, and Wilkes Co., NC and Washington GCo., VA, as chronicled inThe Virginia Gazette in 1820-1830s. Some family members made claims through theCherokee Land Claims process, conducted by Guion Miller in 1901-1906. Twogenerations of the family members were prosecuted under the state'santi-miscegenation laws, which prohibited American Indians marrying whites.Because settlement Indians were part of the community, they were subject ot thecivil and criminal laws of the state and counties. Direct descendents still livein the foothills of the Appalachians in Caldwell, Ashe and Wilkes Counties.

In 1843 the State of North Carolina v. WILLIAM P. WATTERS, son of JOHN WATERS,in a court held at Ashe County, convicted WILLIAM WATERS and ZILPHIA THOMPSONof fornication. WILLIAM P. WATERS, son of ELIZABETH CULLUM, who was one halfCherokee Indian by blood. and JOHN P. WATERS of Scotch (?) blood, wasprosecuted in in the state court of the State of North Carolina for marryingZILPHA THOMPSON, the mother of his children. Not being sufficiently removedfrom his Indian blood to be free from prosecution under the State lawprohibiting the marriage of Indians and Whites, WILLIAM WATERS was found guiltyand fined him a good sum and was ordered to leave the State of North Carolina.It was proven in court that William P. Waters was of Cherokee Indian blood. Hiswife, ZILPHA, was one-sixteenth Cherokee blood through her line of descent fromNED SIZEMORE, a full-blood Cherokee Indian.

Waters and Thompson appealed their case to the North Carolina Supreme Courtclaiming that they had lawfully married and that some evidence supportingWaters' contention of "being descended from Portugese and not Negro orIndian ancestors" had been wrongfully disallowed. Water's racialcomposition was the pressing issue for the high court. If Waters werePortugese, then his marriage to Zilphia Thompson was legal and hence theconvictions would be overturned. The North Carolina Supreme Court reviewed thetestimony of the trial witnesses. ISSAC TINSLEY, a witness for the State,stated that he knew Waters' grandparents and that they were "coal blackNegroes." Defense witnesses contradicted Tinsley's testimony assertingthat Waters' grandmother, MARY WOOTEN, was "not as black as some Negroesand had thin lips." Other defense witnesses testified that they knewWaters' parents. His mother, ELIZABETH CULLOM, was described as a "brightmulatto with coarse straight hair" and his father as a "white man butof a dark complexion for a white man." From this testimony the high courtconcluded that further evidence as to Waters' racial composition would notchange the fact that in North Carolina Waters had sufficient black ancestry tobe defined as a person of color. The high court declared: "But admit thatthe defendants (sic) grandfather was white, and the grand-mother only halfAfrican - of which there is no evidence, still the defendant would have beenwithin the degree prohibited fr om contracting marriage with a white woman. Wesay, prohibited degree because although the act which annuls marriages betweenthe two races, uses the words "persons of color" generally we are ofopinion, that expression must be construed to other disabilities imposed , forpersons of a similar nature upon persons of mixed blood." Unfortunatelyfor WATERS and THOMPSON, their cover of closeness of color argument provedinsufficient to protect them from state punishment.
In the court documents where the child of theirs was being tried forfornication it is claimed again that she was Cherokee

cherosage

11-29-2013, 07:49 PM

What does anyone know of this Wooten family? I have a copy of her picture and she doesn't even have any appearance of negro. She is older in this picture and seems slight or quite small. IF, this is the same Wooten.

Bob

Thanks so very much for the information on the Keyauwee tribe Linda! I had not been finding much information at all on them.

Our family lore has always been that we are Cherokee or Catawba. I have found that we are probably both with more Cherokee than Catawba though. We have several different lines in our family that are Cherokee and one possibly Catawba. The documents I have been referring to seem to all claim Cherokee for my Waters side of the family. They lived in the Ready's River area of Wilkes County, NC in the 1790's to early 1800's with the wife Elisabeth dying in about 1812 and husband leaving area with children split up and given/apprenticed to other families.

I have not looked up the rejected applications yet. Not sure how to go about that. I know it was applied for Sept 8, 1896 Application #4292. Do I have to actually go to DC? From what I understand, it is claimed in them that the wife of John Philip Waters and mother of his children was Cherokee. It is said he also married a Catawba woman after his Cherokee wife's death. His first wife had a white name--Elisabeth Cullin/Cullum/Cullom. She is named in the document. Below is some of the the information that I am going on that was given to me by a woman named Brenda Keck. There is information on my family in the book called "Annals of Southwest Virginia" that calls the children Quarteroons.

An Indian community on the Yadkin River in the Mulberry Fields area of what is now Wilkes County lived prior to the arrival of white settlers in the 1750's. This community had the oral tradition of being descendants of the Chowans and the survivors of The Lost Colony from the eastern coast of North Carolina as well as Portugease descent. From the coastal area, the tribe joined the Catawbas and then moved up the Yadkin River to the Mulberry Fields area in the foothills of the Appalachians. This was neutral territory between the Catawbas and the Cherokees. The first white man to cross the Catawba River and settle in Western N.C. was WILLIAM SHERRILL in 1742, but the Yadkin area which was not as "farmable" as the lower Catawba Valley remained isolated from white exploration until BISHOP SPANGENBERG mapped this area in 1752 and identified one white family living there. By the 1780s the Indian community had orchards and plantations. In the late 1700s and early 1800s a conflict arose over land grants and the same land being granted more than once. The property belonging to the Indian community was taken and sold at the courthouse in the late 1700s. The founding family of the known descendants of this Chowan community are JOHN P. WATERS & ELIZABETH CULLON. The children are William P. Waters, Wesley P. Waters, Wallace Waters, Louisa Waters, Ketton and Wilburn Waters. Wilburn Waters is the famous Indian from Ashe, and Wilkes Co., NC and Washington GCo., VA, as chronicled in The Virginia Gazette in 1820-1830s. Some family members made claims through the Cherokee Land Claims process, conducted by Guion Miller in 1901-1906. Two generations of the family members were prosecuted under the state's anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited American Indians marrying whites. Because settlement Indians were part of the community, they were subject ot the civil and criminal laws of the state and counties. Direct descendents still live in the foothills of the Appalachians in Caldwell, Ashe and Wilkes Counties.

In 1843 the State of North Carolina v. WILLIAM P. WATTERS, son of JOHN WATERS, in a court held at Ashe County, convicted WILLIAM WATERS and ZILPHIA THOMPSON of fornication. WILLIAM P. WATERS, son of ELIZABETH CULLUM, who was one half Cherokee Indian by blood. and JOHN P. WATERS of Scotch (?) blood, was prosecuted in in the state court of the State of North Carolina for marrying ZILPHA THOMPSON, the mother of his children. Not being sufficiently removed from his Indian blood to be free from prosecution under the State law prohibiting the marriage of Indians and Whites, WILLIAM WATERS was found guilty and fined him a good sum and was ordered to leave the State of North Carolina. It was proven in court that William P. Waters was of Cherokee Indian blood. His wife, ZILPHA, was one-sixteenth Cherokee blood through her line of descent from NED SIZEMORE, a full-blood Cherokee Indian.

Waters and Thompson appealed their case to the North Carolina Supreme Court claiming that they had lawfully married and that some evidence supporting Waters' contention of "being descended from Portugese and not Negro or Indian ancestors" had been wrongfully disallowed. Water's racial composition was the pressing issue for the high court. If Waters were Portugese, then his marriage to Zilphia Thompson was legal and hence the convictions would be overturned. The North Carolina Supreme Court reviewed the testimony of the trial witnesses. ISSAC TINSLEY, a witness for the State, stated that he knew Waters' grandparents and that they were "coal black Negroes." Defense witnesses contradicted Tinsley's testimony asserting that Waters' grandmother, MARY WOOTEN, was "not as black as some Negroes and had thin lips." Other defense witnesses testified that they knew Waters' parents. His mother, ELIZABETH CULLOM, was described as a "bright mulatto with coarse straight hair" and his father as a "white man but of a dark complexion for a white man." From this testimony the high court concluded that further evidence as to Waters' racial composition would not change the fact that in North Carolina Waters had sufficient black ancestry to be defined as a person of color. The high court declared: "But admit that the defendants (sic) grandfather was white, and the grand-mother only half African - of which there is no evidence, still the defendant would have been within the degree prohibited fr om contracting marriage with a white woman. We say, prohibited degree because although the act which annuls marriages between the two races, uses the words "persons of color" generally we are of opinion, that expression must be construed to other disabilities imposed , for persons of a similar nature upon persons of mixed blood." Unfortunately for WATERS and THOMPSON, their cover of closeness of color argument proved insufficient to protect them from state punishment.
In the court documents where the child of theirs was being tried for fornication it is claimed again that she was Cherokee

cherosage

12-02-2013, 04:01 AM

What does anyone know of this Wooten family? I have a copy of her picture and she doesn't even have any appearance of negro. She is older in this picture and seems slight or quite small. IF, this is the same Wooten.

Bob

I'm sorry, I have a picture of Martha Wooten Putney married to Robert Putney. Bob